Would You Like to Make That a Meal?

Friday, October 15, In the Year of our Lord 2010
My House, Caronport Saskatchewan
Preparing Supper, 5:20 PM
Weather = Sunny yet cool/cold and windy

Today I felt the urge to rage against Subway’s “would you like to make it a meal” deal. This has been something that has irked me for a while. For an additional $2.20 (in Caronport Saskatchewan) you can add a fountain drink and a couple cookies or a tiny bagette of chips. My issue is that the $2.20 being paid is not proportionate to the goods received.

I shall begin with the fountain drink. It is a combination of syrup and carbonic fizzy water. It is low quality. very cheap to mass produce, and is literally shipped by the truckload. At this point I’m not sure which is worth more, the fountain drink or the disposable cup you put it in! Let’s say half of the $2.20 is for the drink, so that’s $1.10. I have seen an entire liter of REAL soft drink being sold for less than that on the right day at Wal-Mart or Superstore. Furthermore, fountain drink pop is not something that I want to fill up with, I would be happy with half the drink you get. This item is clearly not worth the debatable $1.10 that you paid for it. Even if it did cost that much make, ship out, and make a 10% profit (which it doesn’t) then it would still not be worth it.

Then you have your choice between some cookies and a handful of chips. Now their cookies are pretty good, if not for a dangerously high (sometimes even disgusting) sweetness content. But we all know that the cookies come in a frozen tube of pre-made mass produced dough. I ask you, how much do you think it really costs subway to bake these cookies? After all, they’re COOKIES! Nough said.

But what if you choose the handful of chips? It is quite literally a ‘handful’ if you have man sized hands. Maybe it is enough to satisfy some people, but it is hardly worth the other $1.10 that you paid for it. I would peg these annoyingly small bags of mass produced lightly seasoned potato at $0.45, and most of that would be to cover the cost of shipping as well as to create the biodegradable chip bags.

So when they ask me “would you like to make that a meal?” I say no. If they try to convince me otherwise then I proceed to tell them that I could simply walk another 20 feet into the service station and pick up a full bag of chips or three day old cinnamon buns (one of which is filling) for a much better price. If the meal deal was only an additional dollar then I might consider it.

Furthermore, the concept of “meal” doesn’t seem to fit hear. What you’re adding to make your super sized sandwich a ‘meal’ has little to no nutritional value, nor is it even partially filling. If I were seriously still hungry after eating my fully loaded foot long bundle of goodness (which in itself should be considered a meal) then I would bite the bullet and buy another ½ foot of similar tasty and filling awesomeness. I think a better way of phrasing “would you like to make that a meal” would be to ask “would you like to add tasty nonessentials at a price that looks small but is actually unreasonably high?” “Would you like to exchange some more hard earned cash for some things that are not good for you?”

Really what they are asking you is “would you like to give us more money?”

So there you have it, some Greg Rage against Subway. Rawr!

Greg Out